Race report – 11/14 5k run

I signed up some weeks ago for the Garden State Plaza 5K, which is almost brutally convenient and close to home.

The night before was REED Academy‘s Tribute to Dan and Joan Silna, who graciously sponsored a significant portion of the new building at REED and our Capital Campaign. This project will be the beneficiary of everything I raise in pursuit of my IronMan and all the events in-between.

(NB: I suppose I should create an event calendar listing the races I’m signed up for or even contemplating. I’ll write a post asking for advice on other sprint or 70.3 races in late August — how close is too close to my November race? In general, I know from experience that I respond reasonably well to more and frequent and harder workouts vs lengthy tapering and rest.)

My food for the 13th consisted of pancakes in the morning with my boys, a couple Starbucks’ teas, and then salad and about 5 glasses of champagne that night. Oh, and blueberry pancakes and bacon with some great friends late that evening. (Ranger School made me a sucker for blueberry pancakes.)

So, waking up I figured wasn’t going to be fun, but the watch said 7, the race was 8:45, and it was literally only 10 minutes from my home. So I was able to grab another 40 minutes of sleep, get ready, and be at the race and ready well before 8:30.

The morning was cool, and since I’ve never made any secret of the fact that I hate running in the cold (hence, no, I’m actually not really crazy about the idea of the NY Marathon — that was a cold day last week!), I wore a long sleeved running shirt. The sun was out, though, and it turned out to be really pleasant.

Mile 1: I have no worries about pushing to the front at the start; that’s not where I’m going to do well or poorly (famously unlike my start at the 1993 Honolulu Marathon, my first: the first mile was about 11 min and the second even slower. 30,000 people will have that effect in Waikiki.) My split was 6:55, which was faster than I’d expected but not really fast.

Mile 2: came around at 14:30, which had me frowning at the ugly split; 7:30+ for a mile was definitely not what I should be running, but I literally don’t think I’ve been able to run since mid-October (my ex was out of the country for several weeks and so I’d had the boys at home. Not the best reasoning, but there aren’t enough hours to fit everything in. I guess I need a treadmill for the winter after all!)

Final: 22:41.2, which computes to 7:19 pace (that’s better than I was thinking as I was doing the math in my head right afterwards; I forgot about that extra 1/10 mile and was thinking my last was an 8-min pace; I feel better now.)

31 out of 180 men (my goal is definitely to be closer to 90%ile on a regular basis)

2 out of 17 in my age group (M 40-44); I think that grouping’s a little tight and don’t feel quite that good about it, when compared to the Master ranking of 10/71.

Overall, the race was fun, the course was nice, and I’ll plan on doing it next year (although now I’m wondering what the calendar says about that — it should be post-Ironman but I’ll have to check.)

The 7:19 pace really has me feeling a lot better about myself. That last mile had me bummed. (Don’t worry, I still have plenty of work to do and my next swim class is coming up. That’s my main goal through the winter.)